THE ACQUISITION OF

LANGUAGE
GROUP 4
PRISKILA NOVIANTI (321610019)
AULIA RACHMADHANTI (321610076)
CICI NURPERMADANI (321610116)
 Language
Acquisition
Language acquisition is one of the most fascinating
facets of human development. Children acquire
knowledge of language or languages around them in
a relatively brief time, and with little apparent effort.
 A Biological Predisposition for
Language
 If human language is a genetically based
characteristic of humans, represented and processed
in the human brain, then it follows that a human
infant will acquire that system as its brain develops.
In fact, biologically based systems, for human and
other animals, require environmental input to trigger
or stimulate development.
 For example, the biologically based system for
human vision is already well developed at birth, but
newborns cannot differentiate the input they receive
from their left versus their right eye, so they have no
depth perception.
 New-born kids have a complex, innate
LAD (a system which prepares them for
language acquisition), This contains the
principles of language.
 Children of any race or nationally can
learn any language, through cultural
transmission. They learn the details
specific to their own language from their
environment.
 Characteristics of the language in the
environment
 The primary purpose of a child’s
linguistics environment is to provide
information about the language the
child is acquiring.
 B.F. Skinner, children learn language
through imitation, reinforcement
and analogy.
 Imitation
Imitation
Children
Children language
language by
by listening
listening toto the
the adult
adult speech
speech around
around them
them
and
and reproducing
reproducing what
what theythey hear.
hear. For For example,
example, consider
consider aa
scenario
scenario where
where the
the adult
adult says,
says, “This
“This isis aa big
big blue
blue ball”,
ball”, and
and the
the
child
childimmediately
immediatelyreplies
replies“Blue
“Blueball”.
ball”.

Reinforcement
Reinforcement
Children
Childrenlearn
learnthrough
throughpositive
positiveand
andnegative
negativereinforcement.
reinforcement.

 Correction
Correction of
of “bad
“bad grammar”
grammar” and
and reward
reward for
for “good
“good
grammar”.
grammar”. For
Forexample:
example:
NEXT

 Child : Want other one spoon. Daddy.

 Father : You mean, you want the other spoon.
 Child : Yes, I want other one spoon, please. Daddy.
 Father : Can you say “the other spoon?”
 Child : Other one spoon.
 Father : Say “other.”
 Child : Other
 Father : Spoon.
 Child : Spoon.
 Father : Other spoon.
 Child : Other spoon. Now give me other one spoon.
 Developmental stages
There are six stages in children’s first language
acquisition, namely:
1. Pre-talking stage/Cooing (0-6 months)

According to Bolinger (2002:283) pre-talking

stage or cooing is the vowel-like sound
responding to human sounds more definitely,
turns head, eyes seem to search for speaker
occasionally some chuckling sounds.
2. Babbling stage (6-8 months)
Babbling is the sounds which infants produce as
consonant-vowel combinations, Steinberg (2003:147). The
sounds which are produced by infants but not all the
speech sounds are same in language of the world such as
[ma-ma-ma] or [da-da-da] and [ba-ba-ba] or [na-na-na].
3. Holophrastic stage (9-18 months)
Holophrastic is the children’s first single word which
represent to a sentence. For example, Debby’s mother
recorded the words she had pronounced during the 8
months after the appearance of her first word at 9 months
(this was [adi], used both for her "daddy")During the two
weeks from 17 months - 17 months and a half, she more
than doubled her vocabulary.
4. The two-word stage (18-24 months)
Two-word stage is the mini sentences with simple
semantic relations. For example: Hi Mommy, Jane
sock, bye bye daddy.
5. Telegraphic stage (24-30 months)
longer and complex structures. For example: he
good boy, I good girl.
6. Later multiword stage (30+months)
According to Bolinger (2002:283) at this stage is
fastest increase in vocabulary with many new
additions everyday; no babbling at all; utterances
have communicative intent.
Later language development
As children grow older, they develop
more proficiency with language. Their
processing capacity increases and their
ability to produce and interpret longer
and more syntactically complex
sentences improves.
 Discourse ability
Discourse abilities, as well as linguistic abilities,
are part of language abilities, but they are directly
linked with discourse practices and a certain
communicative situation. Discourse abilities
allow
a person to effectively initiate, keep, expand, and
complete the process of communication, using
language appropriate to any given situation.
 Metalinguistic awareness
 Metalinguistic awareness refers to the ability to
objectify language as a process as well as an
artifact. The concept of metalinguistic awareness
is helpful in explaining the execution and
transfer of linguistic knowledge across languages
(e.g. code switching as well as translation among
bilinguals). Metalinguistics can be classified as
the ability to consciously reflect on the nature of
language.
 Second language acquisition
 Second language acquisition (SLA), second language
learning, or acquisition of L2 (language 2), is the
process by which people learn a second language.
Mastery of the second language is also a scientific
discipline aimed at studying the process. The second
language acquisition field is the subdiscipline of
applied linguistics, but also receives research attention
from various other disciplines, such as psychology
and education.
 THANK YOU